Weight is a battlefield and I'm a veteran. My family growing up was full of skinny people, not just normal weight. Skinny. My Mom, God bless her sweet memory, drank protein drinks between meals to keep her weight up! It was my privilege to be the middle kid of five. Bookended by two older sibs who were skinny and two younger sibs who were, yup, skinny, I stuck out as the pudgy one. And my Mom didn't let me forget it. For my own good I was frequently reminded of how I didn't fit into the family profile by both my well-intended parents. "Do you really want to eat that?" "Do you know how many calories are in that?" So I grew up thinking I was fat and forever fighting with my body to lose ten, twenty, thirty pounds.
Fast forward forty-something years. My brother sent me some old black and white photos of myself at fourteen and I actually gasped. I was, excuse me, HOT! Not fat, not even pudgy. This girl had curves that flattered. What a revelation! Digging into photo after photo I saw a normal weight healthy (dare I say it?) attractive girl. Could it be I was brainwashed into a bloated body image?
